Dr. Fred Cerise, identified Monday as the sole finalist to run Parkland Memorial Hospital, said he was impressed with employees’ willingness to talk about the facility’s regulatory problems.

“People were addressing those issues head-on,” said Cerise, one of three candidates for the chief executive officer’s job. Each visited Parkland in recent weeks.

Cerise, 51, is associate dean for clinical affairs at Louisiana State University and previously headed LSU’s statewide public hospital system.

The Parkland board of managers has yet to finalize Cerise’s CEO contract, including when he will start and how much he will be paid. His LSU salary is $358,930.

The Parkland job is expected to pay about $1 million annually, if the board reinstates incentive pay for its top executives.

Asked for his reaction to Parkland’s widespread problems that threatened future funding, Cerise was not specific about what went wrong.

“I am aware, but not intimately aware, of all the interactions, but I know there were some problems,” Cerise said in a phone interview shortly after the Parkland board announced his selection.

“The board made a major effort trying to address those issues. It’s a much more stable time now, and we have to make sure we don’t backtrack.”

Parkland’s patient safety deficiencies were cited by state and federal officials in 2011 after a series of stories published in The Dallas Morning News.

Parkland patients were found to be in “immediate jeopardy,” meaning that the hospital’s conditions were bad enough to harm them.

Emergency care, infection control and nursing were the primary concerns. Parkland spent nearly two years and almost $100 million to resolve the issues.

In the process, most of Parkland’s top managers departed, including Dr. Ron Anderson, the hospital’s longtime CEO. He vacated the job in late 2011 after the hospital board declined to renew his contract.

Board chairwoman Debbie Branson said in a statement Monday that the CEO selection process “was one of the toughest decisions any of the board members had to make.”

The board hired a search firm in 2012, which brought in the first group of candidates a year ago. None of the four was chosen.

Cerise was among the latest slate of three finalists identified last month. They included David S. Lopez, president and CEO of the Harris County Hospital District, based in Houston, and Dr. Marlon L. Priest, executive vice president at the Bon Secours Health System, based in Marriottsville, Md.

“Dr. Cerise is going to bring a lot of experience and fresh energy to this position,” Branson said. “Aside from [being] a CEO, he has been an outspoken advocate for public health care and its importance to communities.

“I want him to bring that passion to Parkland, and I am convinced he will.”

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price was critical of the board’s choice, saying he preferred another candidate. All three finalists met with county commissioners and community representatives during the interview process.

“Most of the community and most of Parkland’s staff said Dr. Priest was head and shoulders above the others,” Price said. “I think he understood where health care was going.”

Price said he also was concerned that Parkland’s board did not take the opportunity to hire a minority administrator. Priest is black, Lopez is Hispanic and Cerise is white.

“Parkland’s corporate suite is the Caucasian suite,” Price said. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Asked what he thought of Cerise, Price said he appreciated the fact he had challenged Gov. Bobby Jindal’s plan to privatize Louisiana’s public hospitals.

“That probably means he had some integrity,” Price said. “I didn’t query him on that.”

In 2012, Cerise lost his job heading the statewide safety-net health system in Louisiana. The system was run by LSU and included 10 public hospitals, about 500 clinics and two public medical schools.

When Jindal’s administration advanced a plan to seek private companies to run the public hospitals, Cerise fought back.

“I didn’t think it was a good idea,” he said. “I was hired to run the public system. I thought we did a good job.”

Louisiana was trying to reduce Medicaid spending by $329 million because of a dramatic cut in federal funding. Cerise’s plan was to cut Medicaid spending throughout the entire system, reducing the need for private partners.

But by defending the system he had overseen for five years, Cerise was forced to step down.

Since then, he has worked on medical education issues at LSU while also looking for a new job, he said. His LSU contract expires in September 2015.

“I have mixed feelings about leaving,” Cerise said. “Pretty much my whole career has been in Louisiana. I didn’t imagine that I would leave the state. I didn’t anticipate it.”

Parkland represents a new but similar challenge, he said.

“I know there have been challenges in the past, and I know there’s going to be work to do,” Cerise said. “I am excited about it.”

BACKGROUND

Age: 51

Education: Bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame; medical degree from the New Orleans School of Medicine at Louisiana State University; master's degree in public health from Harvard University.

Current position: Associate dean for clinical affairs at LSU and the medical school.

Previous experience: Vice president for health affairs and medical education at the Louisiana State University System; secretary for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals; CEO and medical director of Earl K. Long Medical Center in Baton Rouge.

Personal: Married to Shannon Cerise, a social worker. They have three children.